Aftermath
by cof2e2
Summary: After the season 2 premier Gary is talking again, but has he really forgiven the team for abandoning him in Building 7? A Bill/Gary friendship story.


Summary- After the season 2 premier, Gary is talking again, but is he that forgiving of being left in Building 7? A Bill/Gary friendship fic

Disclaimer- I do not own Alphas, and I am making no money from playing with its characters.

A/N-I have decided to try to write a Bill and Gary friendship fic because I find their relationship so complicated and fascinating. I don't really think I did the characters justice, and after several rewrites it doesn't seem to be improving, but I'm posting anyway. Once again I am writing a Gary story in the first person present tense. I rarely write in this style, but there is something about the character of Gary that just makes it very hard for me to write about him in any other way. Because it is from Gary's POV I often write in sentence fragments, run on sentences, and restate thoughts multiple times in slightly different ways, because I believe that is what Gary's inner-monologue would be like. Over the years in my workings in the home care field I have worked with a lot of people with autism, including two savants, so I have used those experiences to attempt get into the appropriate mindset of writing through the POV of an autistic character. Unfortunately that also means I sometimes start writing the character of Gary more like some of the people I have taken care of (who are mostly much lower functioning than he is). I have tried to catch myself when I do it, but I may not have entirely succeeded. Anyways, I apologize for my ramblings, I shall get on with the story. So here you are, and I hope you enjoy.

ALPHAS

I leave the break room and go to my old office. My office is just the way I left it and that makes me feel a little better. Bill sometimes thinks it's funny to mess with my things and move them around when I'm not there, but I don't laugh. When no one laughs at a joke the joke is not funny. But Bill did not move my things around this time and that is good, because I am already agitated and that would have made me more agitated.

I like my old office. It is small and safe and it is all one colour. I did not like my work station at the NSA. They called it a cubicle, but that just means it is a workspace with a desk and computer, and no real walls. I like walls around my workspace. I did not like the people at the NSA either. They told me to do things I didn't want to do and they didn't respond when I greeted them appropriately and they laughed at me when I wasn't making jokes. Some of them made fun of me and called me 'retard' when I wasn't there, but I monitored the cameras, so I always knew when they were talking about me. And then they touched me even though I don't like to be touched! So I got angry and I pushed and hit them. And I got sent to Building 7. And I hate it there, and I don't want to go back ever. I don't remember a lot about being there but I do know it was bad. I don't think that any alphas should ever get sent there no matter what they do it is so bad.

But I am not in Building 7 anymore, I am at the office. And I am waiting for my mom to pick me up and take me home. The office is better than the NSA or Building 7, but I still do not really want to be here and I want to go to my house. But my mom is not answering her phone right now and I have to wait. I tracked her cell phone so I know that it is in her locker at work so I have to wait for her to get done at work at 4:30, and it is only 3:36.

There is knocking on my door and Bill comes in.

"How you doin', Gary?" he asks me.

"You weren't invited in," I tell him. "You knocked, but then you came in without me inviting you, and that's impolite. You should always wait to be invited in."

Bill laughs, but he shouldn't, because I wasn't telling a joke. "Sorry, Gary. I just wanted to check on you. You disappeared on us there." He stops smiling and looks very serious. "In more ways than one."

"I didn't disappear Bill, I'm not Blind-Spot Girl, I'm a transducer," I say.

Bill smiles a little again. I am not very good at reading facial expressions, but it kinda looks like he is sad even with the smile. "That's not what I meant, Gary," he says. "You went away for a while."

"Yeah, Bill I was away in Building 7," I frown. Bill is not making sense.

Bill doesn't say anything right away. He leans on the door and looks at me. I don't like making eye contact, so I look at the wall.

"Gary, even after you got out of Building 7, you weren't really back. Not-… I guess I'm just trying to say that I'm glad you're you again."

"I'm always me, Bill. I don't know how to be anyone else," Bill is really being strange now. I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

Bill laughs again. "Yeah, okay, Gary. I'm just glad to have you back, partner."

"Partners watch each other's backs," I tell him.

"That's right, we do."

He doesn't understand what I am saying, so I try again. "Partners don't leave each other behind, Bill. You left me behind."

Bill sighs and frowns. He comes to the other side of the room and sits on the desk in front of me. Desks are for working at, not sitting on, but I don't tell him so. "You're right, Gary. And I'm sorry—we're all sorry we left you there. We all would have been there in a second to get you out if we had known that you were there."

I am confused, because no one told me this before. If the team didn't know that I was in Building 7 it wasn't their fault that they didn't get me out. "You didn't know I was in Building 7?"

"No Gary, we didn't."

I think about it for a minute. "If you didn't know I was in Building 7, then you didn't leave me behind," I decide.

Bill smiles really big. "Does that mean you forgive us?"

"You still shouldn't have sent me to the NSA, Bill. I hate it there and I wanted to come home the whole time."

"You're right Gary, I made a mistake. I big mistake, I never should have let the NSA take you. But the thing about mistakes is that we learn from them. So I am never going to make that mistake again. You're never going back to the NSA, and you get to stay here and work with us as long as you want. Okay?" he asks.

If it wasn't his fault he didn't get me out of Building 7 and he won't ever make me go back to the NSA I can forgive him. My mom says I should forgive people if they are sorry, no matter how mad I was at them. And I'm not really mad at Bill anymore, as long as he won't do it again.

"Okay, partner," I say to him.

Bill smiles again, and pats me on the back.

"Ah, don't do that! I don't like to be touched," I tell him, even though he should know that by now.

"Sorry, Gary," Bill says, still smiling. "How about we get out of here. I'll drive you home. And on the way we can stop and I'll get a box of pudding pops for you."

That sounds like a good idea. "I haven't had pudding pops for 27 days," I tell Bill and I get out of my chair and put on my jacket. "I really like pudding pops."

"I know you really like pudding pops. And since it's been so long since you've had them I think we should let you go ahead and eat the whole box of 'em," Bill says.

"My mom only lets me have one at a time," I let Bill know.

"Well, what good are rules if you can't break them every once in a while?"

It is a question, but I don't think it's one that I'm supposed to answer, so I don't. I like the idea of eating a whole box of pudding pops, so I won't argue. As we walk down the hall I remember something Bill said in the break room.

"Bill, you said that if I talked again you'd let me drive. You made a promise, Bill."

Bill groans, but he is still smiling. And so am I.

The end.


End file.
